“No! If you open the bed-curtains, you let in the light. My poor eyes! Why are you here, my dear? Why are you not at the school?”
“It’s holiday-time, aunt. Besides, I have left school for good.”
“Left school?” Miss Letitia’s memory made an effort, as she repeated those words. “You were going somewhere when you left school,” she said, “and Cecilia Wyvil had something to do with it. Oh, my love, how cruel of you to go away to a stranger, when you might live here with me!” She paused—her sense of what she had herself just said began to grow confused. “What stranger?” she asked abruptly. “Was it a man? What name? Oh, my mind! Has death got hold of my mind before my body?”
“Hush! hush! I’ll tell you the name. Sir Jervis Redwood.”
“I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him. Do you think he means to send for you. Perhaps he has sent for you. I won’t allow it! You shan’t go!”
“Don’t excite yourself, dear! I have refused to go; I mean to stay here with you.”
The fevered brain held to its last idea. “Has he sent for you?” she said again, louder than before.
Emily replied once more, in terms carefully chosen with the one purpose of pacifying her. The attempt proved to be useless, and worse—it seemed to make her suspicious. “I won’t be deceived!” she said; “I mean to know all about it. He did send for you. Whom did he send?”
“His housekeeper.”
“What name?” The tone in which she put the question told of excitement that was rising to its climax. “Don’t you know that I’m curious about names?” she burst out. “Why do you provoke me? Who is it?”